Manchester's the Midland to feature in Channel 5 series
The four-star, 312-bedroom Midland hotel in Manchester is to feature in a new four-part series on Channel 5.
The Inside Manchester's Midland Hotel: Keeping Up Appearances series, which begins on 1 June, will follow the hotel's staff through their daily lives, including those in front-of-house, receptionists, waiters, chefs, housekeeping and maintenance.
The channel has been granted what it calls "full access" to the grade II-listed hotel, and will seek to celebrate the Midland's history while also demonstrating the reality of working in such a hotel.
The programmes will show how the management aims to keep staff happy, and how the housekeeping team dealt with a boiler breakdown that required all laundry to be sent externally.
It will also follow sous chef Mark Grice's struggle to unite ideas for transforming the hotel's afternoon tea with the guests' sometimes-conservative expectations, and general manager Mike Magrane's attempts to renovate the less-than-modern gym despite opposition from some long-serving staff.
Magrane joined the hotel team in 2005 and previously worked with Forte Hotels. Other staff set to appear on-screen include executive head housekeeper Sandra Dixon and guest relations manager Thomas Smith.
The Midland opened 111 years ago on Peter Street, and is now part of the Q Hotels group.
This will not be the first time it has featured on television in recent years: last year its restaurant the French had a starring role on the BBC Two show Restaurant Wars: The Battle for Manchester, which followed the site's renovation and update by two-Michelin-starred chef Simon Rogan, alongside Aiden Byrne's then-new space Manchester House.
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